Forza Horizon 3 Graphics Near PC on Xbox One

By Cody Gravelle 10 December 2017

A report showcasing a video comparison between the PC and Xbox One versions of Forza Horizon 3 suggests that the graphical presentation may be near identical.

Microsoft Studios’ Forza Horizon 3 might not be the most anticipated release of 2016, but it is hard to dispute the fact that it is one of the year’s most gorgeous launches. Ever since Forza Horizon 3‘s E3 2016 trailer a few months ago, racing fans have expected nothing short of the most beautiful entry into the series yet – a tall task considering that Forza Horizon typically sells people in part on its ground-breaking and detailed representations of real world automobiles.

Luckily for open world racing fans, Forza Horizon 3 delivered on the lofty expectations its predecessors had set for it, delivering tight gameplay and the kind of sleek, glossy aesthetic characteristic of the series. Now, a comparison video, recorded by Digital Foundry, has attempted to answer the question of which platform makes Forza Horizon 3 look its best – and they may have just stumbled on one of the most impressive achievements in recent gaming memory.

According to the video shown above, Forza Horizon 3 is still better on the PC, as many gamers might have expected. What’s surprising, however, is how close the two games are, as the PC version only barely ekes out a lead in a few categories to the point that it is likely unnoticeable for many fans at all. Objects get drawn-in at roughly the same distance from the car on both platforms, although the PC barely leads in that regard, while the PC platform also has an incredibly slight advantage when it comes to higher resolution textures as well.

For motion blur and shadows, two of the most noticeable visual representations of speed in racing titles, both versions appear pretty much identical. Given that it wasn’t that long ago that the PC platform had such a large edge on consoles in terms of graphics that computer gamers appeared to be gaming in the future, these small differences are a big deal. They also lend credibility to recent claims from Sony execs that the next console generation will stop gamers from switching to PC if they haven’t already.

Of course, not everyone in the gaming industry feels that way, and Microsoft itself has been hinting that the future of console gaming could look a lot like PC gaming does currently. For now, though, Forza Horizon 3 is available for both console and PC gamers, and it looks very good on both – something that gamers are hoping will become the norm as the industry gears up for the next console generation that’s on the horizon.